Thursday, June 21, 2018

Shakespeare

Time once again for the 52-week blogging challenge. Today's prompt is simply: "Shakespeare."

What about him?

In high school we read four Shakespeare plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Cesar, and Macbeth. We read one per year, which was about all I could handle because Elizabethan English was hard. Then in college at the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!), I took a class in which we read four plays in one quarter (about three months). One was Othello and one was The Tempest. I think one was Much Ado About Nothing (it was). I don't remember the fourth. It might have been Antony and Cleopatra. And I found if  you read Shakespeare, the more you read the easier it is to understand. I think we also read some sonnets.

Shakespeare is, of course, considered the greatest playwright of all time. But for modern readers or play goers, it's tough to get past the Elizabethan English (also called "Early Modern English"). Then you wonder if people will be reading David Mamet in 400 years ("Coffee is for closers").

I don't know about that. I know my life was made richer by having to read Shakespeare, even though at the time I hated it.

How do you feel about Shakespeare? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.: Today is the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere. It happened at 6:07 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time (3:07 A.M. my time). Today is the day with the longest amount of daylight in the year. How much daylight depends on your latitude.

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